Strength of Schedule and Schedule Adjusted Ratings

I’m pleased to inform that team stats table now has strength of schedule (SOS) and schedule adjusted ratings (SAR). These two key metrics are broken down to splits such as last 5 games, playing on the road and at home. Interested in Miami Heat’s strength of schedule for just home games? It’s a matter of Heat’s opponents’ average efficiency differential on the road. While there are different ways to calculate SOS, at this point I opted in to offer opponents’ unadjusted efficiency differentials as an indicator of strength of schedule that has been played so far.

The numbers under the SOS column might not be considered as the most accurate SOS ratings, but they give a quick idea of diffuculty of games played throughout the season.

A strength of schedule should be measured relative to which team it belongs to. Once the schedule gets released, fans and franchises look at the schedule and tend to claim that their team’s schedule is the toughest one. The smarter way for evaluating the schedule should be taking a deeper look into schedule distribution. Good teams should better prefer to play a less distributed schedule, while playing a more distributed schedule is better for below average teams.

A distributed schedule includes games with opponents that have a variety in terms of strength. Less distribution means a set of games versus teams that are in a range of similar strengths.